About Colleen Bailey

Despite some freak snowfall last weekend, it looks like we might actually have a real live spring on our hands here in Alaska. There’s some budding green bits on the tree outside my office, the pussywillows are puffy, and the sun stays in the sky until late into the evening. It’s been a long winter, and I’m ready to leave it behind.

I’ve been pretty light on the blog-front this month due to some very important projects that have been occupying my time. Our Administrative Compliance Project Specialist left us after several years of service, and while we scrambled to find her replacement, I ended up heading the effort to celebrate National Compliance Week here at The Arc of Anchorage. Every day we ran random compliance inspections in unlocked offices, leaving pass or fail slips on keyboards to make employees mindful of their surroundings at all times.

We’re also working hard to tighten our security here, both electronic and physical. As one consultant said, “HIPAA compliance isn’t a goal, it’s a process. Every day you should be more compliant than the day before.”

I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately, trying to figure out what I can do on my end, as Therap administrator, to help us be more compliant than the day before. I’ll keep you posted.

We are due to get 8-15 inches of fresh accumulation here in Anchorage. I thought this was supposed to be spring? That’s what my calendar says, but evidently Mother Nature has her own ideas about what “spring” looks like.

Apparently, it looks like this:

It's beginning to look a lot like...Easter?

I’m not sure how I feel about all of this. This is super lame, guys. I had to dig my Beetle out of my driveway this morning and visibility was non-existent on my drive to work. Can I come visit one of you guys?

Look, guys, I don’t have time to get sick. I’m a busy lady, you know? But for the last week and a half I’ve been basically stuck on my couch watching countless episodes of Law and Order: SVU on Netflix. What started out as bronchitis became a sinus infection, but I almost feel well again and am considered fit for human interaction. My officemates still give me the evil eye when I sneeze, though, and I am going through Clorox wipes like they’re going out of style.

This is the first time I’ve taken time off to be sick. I took two full days last week and I ended up leaving early every other day I was working. It never occurred to me until I was answering text messages from back up support staff in the middle of a Mucinex fog just how important back up support is. I’m finally getting my back up (and consequently, my back up’s back up) trained on all the duties I’ve been handed in the Therap world, which prompted me to write a manual of my own job duties. It’s hard to write out all the things you do at your job without missing something, but I’ve gotten a decent size chunk of the pie taken care of.

I thought this might be good food for thought for those of you who are considered the “Therap guru” of your agencies – who is trained to take over for you in the event of an illness? Do you have a handbook or some sort of guide to walk them through the steps of modules they are unfamiliar with? What’s your back up plan?

As the Data Compliance Specialist with The Arc of Anchorage, one of my top priorities is the security of Personal Health Information, and compliance with the regulations that govern the use and access of PHI. Last week, I met with Program Directors, the Deputy Director, and the Director of Operations in order to address the potential vulnerabilities in the initial set up of our caseloads. These caseloads go all the way back to last summer before we went live, and before I knew AT ALL what I was getting myself into. (Incidentally, it was also the first ever meeting I conducted here at the agency, and my first opportunity to use the title “Certified Trainer” – look at me in my big girl shoes!)

I’ve been playing around a lot with the profiles options that came out in a semi-recent update, and guys, it’s awesome. There are endless ways of manipulating how an end-user accesses information in Therap, and that makes it incredibly personalized in regard to remaining compliant with HIPAA and HITECH regulations. It’s like digital spring cleaning! I’m going to be chained to my desk for an indeterminate number of days while I get things moved around the way I like them, but that’s job security folks!

Not that I’m encouraging full-fledged overhauls of the way you as an agency utilize Therap and how you have your caseloads set, but I am suggesting that it’s worth looking over to determine how you can tighten the access to PHI and protect yourselves from potential violations by ensuring you have those settings in place. Play with Super Roles and permissions. Test out the various profiles and abilities therein. I’m having a blast, feeding my OCD and organizing everything into straight little lines like my M&Ms – color coded and ruler-straight.

I know it’s still technically winter, but spring is LITERALLY right around the corner, so dust off those virtual cobwebs and take a look at your Therap closets. A place for everything, and everything in its place…and other cleaning cliches as well.

Well, there’s not a whole lot of news going on here at The Arc of Anchorage – we are all getting back into the swing of things after the holidays, we are all still reeling with excitement and activity after receiving our accreditation with CQL (the first agency in the state to do so!), and as the Data Compliance Specialist, I’m buckling down under some projects to further utilize Therap’s awesome new features. We are finally seeing the sun come up a little earlier than we used to, and despite the freak weather (see below), it’s been a pretty good winter so far.

As the newest Certified Trainer in Alaska, I’m still feeling my way around and trying to figure out where things are and what’s going on – but expect to hear more from me as I get on my feet. I’m excited to be a part of the team and I can’t wait to work more with you.

Therap Services is the national leader in Web-Based Developmental Disabilities Software for Documentation, Reporting and Communication in HCBS, Residential, ICFs and other ID/DD service settings. Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter.